Does anyone know when gauge clusters started getting painted with glow in the dark paint? I can't really tell but mine is original and almost looks like it did glow at some point.
no glow in the dark that I know of. The color is a very light green, which is similar looking to glow paint. but it's not.
IIRC, starting around '46 to near '49; or so; Stude did a phosphorescent-type coating on the gauge needles, & the numbers/markings. Was supposed to replicate/mimic/give-the-feel-of a fighter/bomber instrumentation. Gave a really neat 'black-light' effect, (which I *think* did have a slight glow-in-the-dark effect), which may also have been due to the coating on the bulbs. & it *did* lose its' effect rather rapidly - only lasted a couple of years at the most, as even NOS gauges (kept in the dark in a box) don't have the effect anymore. So far, afaik, the coating/paint hasn't been duplicated - yet. Why, I don't know. I think it'd be a killer effect to revive. Marcus...
Tritium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium_illumination It has a short half-life. Most of our parts would exceed the whole-life.
more than likely it was a lt green phosphorous coating as it would brighten even with a ordinary tungsten filament bulb and its easy on the eye to pick up in low light . ( eye percieve green easier than other colors )
The old Shoebox Ford gauge clusters (like my 49) used to glow in the dark. They have very dark (UV , I believe it was said) filters over the dash bulbs (that you can barely see the light through) to charge the paint to make it glow , rather than washing the cluster with light . Pretty cool , if ya ask me. It doesn't work all that well anymore , but if you shine a light at it , it glows and let's you step back in time , even if only for a minute.
You can still buy glow-in-the dark paint (not the stuff that makes your balls fall off) from gag shops, etc . I bought some once, it was a powder which was mixed with water, and could bee painted or sprayed on with an airbrush.
All thanks for the info. So it is not a chevy thing, but it did happen in the day. I have my cluster apart and was wanting to do improving. The goal is to keep it as original as possible, chrome by day glow by night. I picked up some UV blue glow paint and a chrome pen (more of a brushed silver) I started scratching out my letters on top. Any ideas on a good chrome paint? This is what I have so far: The inspiration: I'm going to try to cut and polish the plexi with some headlight restorer to bring it back up. (Previous owner must have sprayed some alcohol based cleaner).
Me no understand. How will the glow show through the 'chrome' paint? If you paint on the glow first won't it dull the chrome paint so it won't look 'chrome'?
That is a great question The letters are grooved into the plexi on the inside. The paint will go on in reverse order. UV blue will paint on clear, once dry I can layer in the chrome (this should seal in the UV). The UV 'should' reflect off of the chrome. Chrome paint is not true chrome. Hopefully someone can tell me of a good chrome subs***ute.
look in the model car paint section, there is some sort of ok chrome aluminum type paint there. I have a bunch of those clusters (mostly in pieces now), probably eight or ten of them. I managed to find enough decent original plastics to keep my trucks looking ok.
Thanks Jim, I will definitely try, we have a hobby shop close by. It really makes you wonder how they made chrome letters back then. I have a spare for parts just in case I kill this one.
Uhh. If they have any sort of "glow in the dark" pigment from way back in the day, as in.. pre '50s.. i'd be VERY careful of it. If it's radium, which was used on watch dials up until the late 50's.. it is VERY radioactive and if you happen to ingest any of it, it'll likely kill you. Look up the "Radium Girls" and you'll find out just how dangerous the stuff is. Even nowadays, it won't glow but the radiation is still present. Radium also has a half life of 1600 years.. so it's lost only a couple of % of radiation.
I suspect watch hands had it first... perhaps there is a place to get that same style "radioactive" paint used by watch repairmen? Darkroom clocks also had glowing faces and hands. Gary
I have often heard of the girls licking their paint brushes and getting radiation poisoning. Never thought to look it up though ... Interesting that it's true.
WWII? I know that some ****pit gauges were glow in the dark like a watch. Some gauge clusters from the '50s had reflective paint to make them read better at night. I don't know that they were night glow like say an old watch but they did reflect light real well.
Wow that is pretty scary! Used in watches till the 60s http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls I'm using fishing lure paint. Hopefully the paint in my lens was reflective and not radium... Otherwise it's been nice knowing you
Might just be they did away with the glow in 51'..Or I'm not too bright...Circle of light speedo needle looks cool though...
There might be a little, tiny difference between touching radium once, and touching it all day long every day for years. Not that you can get ahold of it easily these days.
I gave Meguiars G3000 restorer a shot. Impossible to get rid of the cracks inside but boy did it turn this lens around! It had the normal scratching but also had chemical damage. It is all gone: Before: After: Here is the paint with a full charge. It is water based and the manufacturer says it isn't radio active. Pretty cool if it works as planned.
Just a note as an after thought. I did two of these lenses today. The first one I sanded left to right, flipped and went left to right. When I put it up to the light the scratching was in an "x" pattern. That one came out pretty well. The next one I sanded left to right, flipped and went right to left. This resulted in a consistent scratch pattern. "X"- at 3000 grit Straight across - at 3000 grit The end result with the consistent pattern looks better in the light, in the other you can almost see the "x" pattern. X -done Straight across -done
Since I am going with the blue theme I tried replacing the green paint with a blue version of each shade. The idea is that when the glow paint isn't charged I will still get a blue hue from the cluster lights. I blasted the really rusted one and it came up really clean. I wish I had before and after blasting. Here is after paint:
Here are the numbers painted with a chrome pen. I used the worst lens since it would have been otherwise undesirable. Of course I smudged some paint at 65... Guess it is a warning. The glow paint does work but doesn't show well on the camera
Conversion from green lit background to blue: I still need to paint the top of the lens, put in the blue turn signal cover and get a good charge on that glow paint. All that together should net me some more blue. Would have been way easier to replace the clear bulbs with blue ones but that would take all the fun out.
I'd go with the Bean Man on this one- aircraft gauges and limited lighting in autos during "blackouts" from air-raids ( remember the running lights on military trucks that had "slits" in them? More for a marker light than for illumination)Neat question!
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